If deuterium and tritium fuse, forming helium-5, why is the mass of the helium-5 nucleus slightly less than the sum of the initial deuterium and tritium masses?

💡 Explanation

The mass decreases because the nuclear binding energy converts a portion of the mass into energy, according to mass–energy equivalence. This mass defect appears as the energy released during fusion; therefore, the mass of helium-5 is less, rather than being caused by electrostatic repulsion or quantum effects.

• A transformer has a primary and secondary coil. If the secondary coil has significantly more turns than the primary, which consequence regarding the inductance and voltage appears?
• A concentration cell comprises two copper electrodes immersed in differing concentrations of copper(II) sulfate solution. Why does the electrode in the more dilute solution act as the anode?
• A chemical engineer wants to design an exothermic reactor. Which outcome occurs when the enthalpy of the products is significantly lower than the enthalpy of the reactants?
• A robotic arm must repeatedly trace a complex path. Which mechanism allows path planning to simplify trajectories by considering only essential topological features?
• An audio engineer uses a graphic equalizer to modify a music signal. Which process is responsible for attenuating certain frequency bands to eliminate feedback?
• If heat capacity increases linearly with temperature, what adjustment accounts for this in determining enthalpy change using Kirchhoff's Law?